To those who may not be as familiar with our story, let us fill you in. The two of us met on a mission trip in Jamaica in 2014. We were building an additional room for the Harper family's children to sleep in. Part of this process involved everyone standing in an assembly line to pass cinderblocks from the opposite side of the property to the house. Brooke decided to stand next to me in the assembly line because she thought that "Colin Madsen's little brother was cute". Once we got home, we stayed in touch but didn't clearly tell each other how we felt. We became good friends over the summer of 2014 and eventually, a 16 year old Jake started his Junior year (year 11 for our international friends) and an 18 year old Brooke began a master's commission program. It wasn't until January of 2015 when the both of us clarified that we had feelings for each other. Fast forward to June 23 of 2015, after a few months of building a foundation as friends and working on ourselves, Brooke and I decided to make it official.

Despite our small age gap, we were determined to make things work, and we knew we were going to put God at the centre of our relationship always. After two years doing life together in Sacramento, CA, Brooke and I knew that God had called us to Sydney for a season of preparation. Here, we learned how to balance a full time school, ministry, work, and a healthy relationship. It has been a challenging season but one that has confirmed, for both of us, that we were ready to be each other's life partners. So after a year and a half down under, I decided to pop the question! November 22, 2018 I asked Brooke to be my wife, to which she replied, "Are you joking? This isn't funny," followed by, "Yes"! And so we land here, Brooke and I are in the second half of our studies here at Hillsong College in Sydney, and are now planning for the greatest wedding ever! We know that the best is yet to come and have faith to see God do great things in and through our relationship together. If you made it this far, thank you so much for taking the time to get to know us a little better. We hope that you enjoyed our humble little story and we look forward to seeing you when we tie the knot on December 13, 2019!